I was South, Cathy North with Richard Jedrychowski West and Michael Prescott East.

Richard led the Ace of Hearts!

What a lead – Ace from AQx and your partner has KJ10 to five! But… Prescott played the 6 – standard count – and I played the 2.

Richard thought Prescott’s low heart was standard attitude (correctly in my opinion) and so switched to a diamond!

+660 and 12 imps vs. the datum.

CC: I find Richard’s lead slightly curious. Isn’t the queen standard from this holding to make it hard for declarer to hold up when he can and should? The last time I led the ace, rather than the queen, from this holding, it was because I was playing with a relatively weak player in the world pairs and, on top of that, I knew she had the entries for our side, so the ace seemed obvious. I suppose the ace has the positive aspect that you can still choose not to send your queen into the Valley of Death.

Like this:

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All serious Prescott partnerships – even Prescott and Gill – play that the lead of an ace asks for count and the lead of a king asks for attitude. Ditto most Bilski partnerships. Under those conditions, sticking to the agreed system must have at least some merit at Trick 1.

I like HA lead if our prior agreement is to give attitude on ace leads. If our agreement is to give count on ace leads but not on queen leads, I prefer HQ lead. If our agrement is to give count on both ace and queen leads, I think I’d lead a low spade, which might beat 3NT.

I think West should switch to a spade, not a diamond, once he decides to switch. Then 3NT would probably go one off (SK, HK, no unblock in case partner has 3 hearts)

I once played in a partnership which gave suit preference on ace leads, at my partner’s suggestion. That too would defeat 3NT as it happens, via the spade switch.

It’s amazing how often your lead to 3NT has struck gold but it’s so hard to tell.

i think the ace of hearts is a decent lead – when the contract can be beaten it will often be best

i think the time for commitment to the plan has passed (without knowing what carding they agreed i figure east did the right thing – i would do the right thing with those hearts on that lead) so west should follow through and continue a heart

but in the bigger picture i blame east – surely east has squandered a ton of equity being the dealer with nice boss suits at these colours

Phil, I’m smiling. And I’m using a supercomputer to find a hand that you don’t think has been lost in the bidding. It’s only been going a week, so far. I’ll let you know when it comes up with something!!

Leads like this one only seem to get written up when they’re right. I’d guess that for each one that worked, there’d be a lot more that didn’t. The telling point, I reckon, is that EW didn’t beat the hand, even on the double dummy lead – add this to the times when the HA loses a tempo and you’d be way behind, overall, with leads like the HA. This applies especially against pairs like Meckwell and Lauria/Versace, i.e., pairs that regularly bid 3NT on 23-24 points and balanced hands.

I don’t know that it would have been my choice. I’d rather have the hearts without the outside ace. And if it doesn’t work when it does, some times, then all round it is obviously a seriously speculative manouevre.

I think a heart lead on a blind auction like this is crazy – there’s no reason to suspect a long suit. The next time west leads a heart, it will be declarer’s ninth trick. I prefer defences where my choice doesn’t make/break the contract at trick one, when I’m leading blind.

Firstly, ace from ace another is a pretty bizarre lead on this auction. Secondly, giving declarer three heart tricks, instead of two (assuming declarer holds KQ9x of hearts) won’t give away the contract, looking at that dummy.

Regarding the lead, I think that it really depends on what you think/hope is going on on the hand. If it is simply a case of trying to find partner’s tricks, there might be a case for AS because THAT might be partner’s suit and if it isn’t, you can still switch to hearts to try that. That plan also works when you need the two quick heart tricks to go with your other tricks. Of course, the major downside is that it makes it more likely that declarer will have 9 tricks to go before you get to set up partner’s heart suit, if that is where the tricks need to come from.

I agree with Cathy that if my plan was to hope that hearts was partner’s suit, I like the HQ more than the HA as a lead. At the table, I think I would lead HQ against this auction without too much thought … and probably spend most of the rest of the hand wishing I had thought more about my opening lead. 🙂